I have a LOT of orange in my house, and in fact, my house IS orange. I've had a look at your Canyon Orange and I think the basic problem is that I would not ever think to combine it with grey. It is similar to my DR ceiling, actually, a room that has wallpaper with a cream background (and the orange in it, along with purple and green). And plain cream on the walls other than that. So if that is your orange colour, I would go with a bright cream, not grey (*and not beige!!!*). But... why is that your chosen orange colour? I would pick an accent colour to help pull together other, less flexible elements in the room, not to create another element that needs to be integrated. The accent colour would be an outcome, not a input. Do you have any prints in the room? I find wallpaper, rugs, or upholstery to be a good place to unite all the different colours. We usually start with a wallpaper, actually, and then the room is always automatically pulled together as long as we stay within sight of the palette of the wallpaper. Maybe you have a piece of artwork, or could add one, that puts your chocolate brown with a good orange and the other tones you are working with? Whatever you use, it could give you the neutral you are after, and help you pinpoint the right orange for the chocolate brown (although I think the shade you've chosen is good for the brown). I know wallpaper is out of style (other than at my house :-)), but from what you've described, a print somewhere in the room might be a welcome change from all the unicolor items. Other orange combinations that we have... the house is P&L Mineral Red and is trimmed with a mid green and Black Magic (dark purple). The stairwell is a creamsicle shade from SW with white trim. And I have some furniture painted a wonderful burnished reddish orange combined with purple in one case, and navy in another. As for brown... I like it with a soft lilac, and I love orange and purple together. You might be able to find a lilac that would work with both your orange and your brown. Sounds insane, I know, but if you keep it very subtle it could work - a clear tone, not greyed. Or a sage green? Anything but grey :-) Karin L

The modern farmhouse trend of white shiplap feature walls sounds like a version of what you are asking for. Not recommending shiplap, as that was done to death, but it would give you a sense of the effect of different texture/same color. I think texture (or wallpaper) would work better than color, because the way you see color varies from wall to wall with the light. So the difference in paint colors would need to be different enough for it to look like more than that normal variation in how the same color looks on different walls of a room. I'm not sure if you can get enough contrast with whites. Maybe if your definition of white includes sufficiently off whites. Something like white grasscloth wallpaper could be a nice accent. Or a paintable textured wallpaper.

Sheen has a huge impact on color. This is why we so often recommend that someone choose one white and paint the walls and trim 2 different sheens. It will appear lighter on the trim and cabinets than the flatter wall sheen. The other thing that impacts the look of a color is the texture it is painted on. I often recommend using heavy weight watercolor paper to create samples because it more closely resembles the texture of a wall than a smooth piece of paper or foam core or the Samplize samples. I have also often used an old piece of primed drywall to test my colors, especially taupes and whites . Both are sensitive to texture variations. Spraying paint and rolling paint also changes the color, sprayed paint dries faster and that generally makes the paint lighter. I always buy a quart of the exact paint in the sheen that I am going to buy in gallon size and paint a portion of a wall in the color before buying gallons. I know this doesn't help after the fact. Out of curiosity I would go to Sherwin Williams and Benjamin Moore and ask them to do a scan of each of the two samplize samples and pull the gallon formula to compare to the actual formula on the gallons you purchased. Is it the same as the formula that you have on the gallons of paint that you purchased? You will know then that it is or is not a color match issue, but a sheen or texture issue. I cannot see the what the color is on the SW sample, but I can see that the second sample is Edgecomb Gray. This color is a taupe and does have some pink undertones. On a textured surface when the light is catching the texture and causing the highlights and shadows those undertones can be more pronounced. Just an FYI - I don't recommend flat paint for walls - it simply isn't as durable as something with a slight sheen like an eggshell finish. Do you plan on re-painting? If so, we may be able to help you find a similar color that will hit the mark.

I suggested all of the above options to my kids and then let my kids pick the colors they want from the Sherwin Williams palette.. they opted for lavender tones .. lol.. I will let them do it.. it will be a fun experiment for their study. I figured paint is cheaper and can be fixed later. Besides if they all want it , ( btw I love lavender too) we will see how it goes. The painter is here so I m thinking maybe done by tomorrow or today. Ceiling is done already.